


Sweet is the Melody

by kikabennet



Series: The Wonderful World of Teenagers [3]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Husbands, M/M, Nostalgia, Songfic, Teenagers, Toddlers, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:25:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikabennet/pseuds/kikabennet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the "Raising Yevgeny Milkovich" and "The Wonderful World of Teenagers" universe. Debbie is getting married and Ian reflects on the life he's built with Mickey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet is the Melody

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I would advise everyone to listen to Aselin Debison's song "Sweet is the Melody" because it will be in this story. Plus it works out perfectly if you listen to it before hand (or as you're reading it) because an eleven year old sang it, and an eleven year old sings it in this fic.  
> I want to thank everyone for enjoying my work and leaving kudos and comments and bookmarks and feel free to shoot me prompts/ideas because I love writing family and kid-oriented stories, I've learned.

[Link to the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOGY20j5Tto) 

It was a very busy morning in the Milkovich household. Ian buzzed around like a hummingbird talking on the phone and trying to make sure his kids looked nice. Mickey was trying to make sure the kids behaved. Gavrel complained that his suit itched. Izzy complained that she was hungry. Yevgeny kept texting on his phone.

“Guys, hurry up,” Ian said, tugging at Gavvie's ear. “We're gonna be late.”

Izzy twirled around, liking the way her dress felt against her legs. She was so proud to be a junior bridesmaid. She pulled up her pantyhose for the millionth time and felt them ride up, giving her another wedgie. She pulled it out, very un-lady like.

“How long do weddings usually take?” Gavvie asked.

“The ceremony doesn't take long at all,” Ian said. “But the reception will be a while, but they're fun.”

Yevgeny wordlessly motioned for Izzy to come to him and he stuck some baby breath flowers in her fishtail braid. The flowers had come from the bouquet she was to carry.

“You look beautiful, Iz,” Ian told her, and she beamed.

“She looks alright,” Mickey teased, smiling.

“I can't believe Aunt Debbie's getting married!” She said. “I'm so excited! And I'm a bridesmaid!”

“And you get to sing at the reception,” Ian reminded her.

“Can we hurry up and go?” Gavvie asked, sounding annoyed.

 

=============================================================

Most of the Gallaghers were already at the venue when Ian, Mickey and the kids arrived. Lip's daughters, six-year-old Daniella and four-year-old Brooklyn, were running around their father in their little flower girl dresses. Lip was a single father, having fallen for yet another woman who was not right for him, and left in the middle of the night shortly after Brooklyn was born with a note that talked about how an 'enclosed life' just wasn't for her. Fiona and Jimmy were there too, along with their son, Rory, eight, and Liam, nineteen. Carl was there too. The family took time to exchange greetings.

Debbie greeted them too, half ready, and she looked beautiful. Fiona and Izzy began fussing over her.

“Weddings are stupid,” Gavrel muttered, and Mickey lightly scuffed the back of his head.

“Can you believe we're giving her away?” Lip asked his brother, picking up little Brooklyn, who looked a lot like her father-she even had the same vacant, lemur blue-eyed stare.

Ian made a funny face at his little niece and held out his arms, which she eagerly complied.

“I know,” he said. “It's crazy.”

Debbie was marrying Matt. After years of on again, off again relations, the two-now both adults, were getting married after a few years of steady dating. Like most of the Gallaghers, she'd crawled her way out of poverty and now worked as a daycare director. She and Matt already had one child, a bubbly two-year-old daughter named Ivy, and another on the way. Luckily, she was barely showing.

Carl and Liam were the only two Gallaghers without children of their own so far.

Kev, Veronica, Svetlana, and Alex showed up too, as well as several of Matt's family and Debbie's friends and coworkers.

It made Ian slightly jealous. Lip had married and had a wedding, and Fiona, and now Debbie, but his and Mickey's had been rushed papers at the courthouse following their almost break up just after Ian had gone on a road trip with Monica during his early bipolar days. He wished now, seeing the pre-wedding take place, that he and Mickey had done something a little more than sign a paper and then go about their day.

The ceremony was beautiful, of course. Debbie looked lovely as she walked down the aisle and her bridesmaids-including Fiona, Veronica, the twins Amy and Gemma, and Izzy looked pretty in their lavender dresses. Daniella and Brooklyn awkwardly threw flower petals from their little baskets behind Debbie, and Brooklyn gave up and set the basket down, walking away to Lip, who was to help give Debbie away. That made the guests chuckle.

The preacher read from his tablet disguised with a bible cover case, and Debbie and Matt awkwardly read their own vows, followed by a kiss and cheers. The reception was to be held back inside, so everyone flocked that way. Debbie and Matt shared their first dance, and then Debbie danced with Lip to the traditional father/daughter dance, and finally it was Izzy's turn to sing. She'd been waiting for this all year.

“Go,” her mother whispered, nudging her to the front where there was a tiny stage.

The DJ, who was well-trained, announced her.

“The bride's niece, Isidora, is now going to sing for us.” He looked at the eleven-year-old, smiling.

“I encourage everyone to find a partner and dance,” he said.

The music started and Izzy shakily took the microphone from the DJ. It was different singing alone in her bedroom into a hairbrush or in her “studio” which was just the garage covered in her artsy junk.

“Sweet is the melody, so hard to come by,” she sang, starting off jittery, but when she caught her mother's eyes, she felt more confident. “It's so hard to make every note bend just right.”

She watched as Debbie and Matt came together, love in their eyes, little Ivy hugging onto her mother's dress.

“You lay down the hours and leave not one trace,” she continued, and watched as Lip took Daniella's hands and slid his big shoes under hers, helping her to dance. “But a tune for the dancing is there in its place.”

She was now not shy at all, watching everyone get into the music, seeing even the children settle down slightly to at least listen to her.

“The dance floor's for gliding, not jumping over ponies,” she sang. “Where boots and gold bracelets come meet as they should.”

She watched as her mother and Alex began dancing together, her mother smiling lovingly at her long-term boyfriend, and Alex pecked her on the lips.

“It's for celebrating a Friday night romance. Forgetting the bad stuff and just feeling good.”

Ian and Mickey stood side by side, looking around awkwardly. They caught Izzy's eyes and she smiled at them.

“An arm's just an arm,” she sang. “ 'til it's wrapped around a shoulder, looped side by side they go stepping out together.”

She nodded at them and Ian smiled at Mickey, his eyebrows raised curiously. Mickey rolled his eyes and took Ian's hand, leading him to the dance floor. They finally began to dance. Nobody had seen the two of them dance together. Izzy wondered if they ever had.

“A note's just a note 'til you wake from your slumber, and dare to discover the new melody.”

Even after her song was finished and she received a loud round of applause, the other songs and dancing just didn't feel the same. Of course, most of them were fun dances that were easy to dance to, especially when everyone was drinking, but people-even strangers, kept coming up to her and telling her what a pretty voice she had.

 

========================================================

The family was exhausted by the time they returned home. Izzy and Gavvie had even fallen asleep on the way. Ian slept-walk the kids to their room, and by the time he and Mickey finally washed up and got into bed, he kissed his husband on the cheek.

“You danced with me,” he said.

“Yeah, whatever,” Mickey replied.

Ian grinned, his lips still pressed to Mickey's skin. Mickey smiled a little too, and rolled over onto his back.

“I love our family,” Ian murmured into Mickey's cheek. “I love you. I love us.”

“Will you stop that already? Jesus.” Mickey said softly, turning his face so he and Ian could kiss on the lips.

They kissed for several minutes, nothing rushed or really leading to anything. Even after so many years, they had never fallen out of love, and they guessed the other was thinking just that because their fingers laced and they let out breathy puffs of laughter through their kisses.

 

==============================================

Several hours later, after a glorious round of tender lovemaking, Ian kissed Mickey's shoulder, who was asleep and snoring, and tugged on a pair of pajama pants before leaving the bedroom. He traveled down the little hallway that wasn't really much of a hallway-it just went straight from the row of bedrooms to the extremely narrow staircase, but they had lined it with framed photographs anyway. Ian stopped to look at them, some going as far back as Yevgeny as a small infant to Izzy holding a new niece. Ian wondered what life would have been like in this particular house had he and Mickey decided to purchase a home outside of South Side, had they not had three children, had the two of them not been too stubborn to really call it quits when times got tough in their relationship, had Ian never gone to the Milkovich house for the gun.

What would life be like for them, he wondered. Would Mickey still be under Terry's thumb? Violently closeted and getting laid in seedy gas station bathrooms because it was the best place for a secret gay fling? Ian wondered what would have happened to him. He couldn't help but think without Mickey, he wouldn't even be here. His family had tried their best with his early bipolar episodes, but it was Mickey who grounded him, who didn't let him pity himself, who made him feel normal and loved for who he was and not what he had going on inside his brain chemicals.

Ian cracked open Yevgeny and Gavrel's door and found them asleep with the lights off, their ceiling fan on top speed, creaking as it spun nearly out of control. Ian took hold of the chain that controlled the speed and clicked it down a few notches. He went to Izzy's room next, and she was also asleep, earbuds in her ear because she liked to fall asleep listening to music. He took the buds from her ear and wrapped them around her music player and set it on the nightstand beside her bed. After he exited her room, he went downstairs to check and make sure all of the doors were securely locked.

“That's you stompin' around everywhere?” Mickey grumbled, walking up behind him rubbing his eyes. “I keep hearing doors shut and shit.”

“Yeah, just checking to make sure we locked up,” Ian said.

Mickey seemed to pick up on the fact that there was something on his mind. Ian sat down on the worn sofa-the sofa that for years small children had climbed all over, Ian and Mickey had made out on and even had sex once or twice (they'd never tell the kids that), and family and friends had come and sat on to enjoy a movie or birthday party with them. Mickey sat down beside him.

“I wish we'd had a wedding sometimes,” Ian said off-handedly.

Mickey didn't say anything.

“Not now,” Ian scoffed. “I just wish we had pictures or something of us coming together.”

“Signing papers at the courthouse?” Mickey teased. “Right after you tried to break up with me, remember that?”

Ian nodded. For a while, the two of them sat in silence.

“Well, you're right,” Mickey said. “It's a little late for a wedding, but what if we did a honeymoon? We can have pictures of that, right?”

Ian looked at him. “Like, go on a trip?”

“Yeah, like go on a fuckin' trip,” Mickey said with a shrug. “I have vacation time. The kids are old enough not to burn the house down. I think.”

He looked at Ian, eyebrows raised high. Ian shrugged and nodded and asked, “Where would we go?”

“Where would you wanna go?” Mickey asked.

“Could we go out of state?” Ian asked.

“Ian, we'll go wherever the fuck you want, okay?” Mickey pecked him on the lips. “Quit being difficult. Don't pussyfoot around this. So come on, where to?”

“Texas?” Ian suggested. “San Antonio. Just saw that on the travel channel. It looks nice.”

Mickey nodded. “Okay. You do all the booking and shit and we'll do it.”

Ian grinned and kissed Mickey on the lips, taking his husband's face in his hands. At that moment, they heard the water maker on the fridge turn on and turned around to see Gavrel getting himself a glass of water.

“Do you fucking mind?” Mickey asked him, and Ian lowered his head to suppress a snort.

“Do _you_ fucking mind?” The thirteen-year-old retorted, taking a drink of water. “You're making out in the living room like teenagers on TV or something. It's weird.”

Mickey tossed a random sweater that had been laid across the back of the couch at him. Gavrel ducked as it hit him.

“Get your ass in bed,” Mickey said, but there was no malice to his tone. “Little buttwipe.”

“Goodnight, Gavvie,” Ian said sweetly.

“Yeah, night,” Mickey said.

“Night,” Gavrel said, heading upstairs. “There's condoms in the upstairs bathroom! I don't keep count!”

Ian busted out laughing then and Mickey just shook his head and rolled his eyes.

 

 

 


End file.
